support Tutorials CDs PPT mouthpieces

Chord Substitution and Improv

Chris

Well Known
Café Supporter
Messages
3,741
Locality
Manchester,England
Now your here guys don't run away>:):)

Lurking around in the depths of my PC was an interesting lesson on chord subs, it had left me puzzled for a long time:confused: at least 6 yrs if you must know.:) After going over it with @aldevis it began to make more sense.
So I thought it would make a nice little intro into the world of chord subs.

1/ C Am | Dm G7 = Rock and Country

2/ CMaj7 Am7 | Dm7 G7 = Pop

3/ Cmaj7 A7b9 | Dm7 G7 = Jazz
4/ Cma7/E A7b9 | Dm7 G7
5/ Cmaj7/E Eb7 | Dm7 G7
6/ Cmaj7/E Eb9 | Dm9 Db9


The top line is your average 1625 chord progression for a lot of Rock/Country music. The second line is your average Pop song, you can see each chord has had another note to it the 7th. The next 4 lines are a variety of chord substitutions that jazz musicians can/do make. This applies to writers and improvisers alike.

Taking it from an improv point of view, your Realbook/fakebook chart has the basic changes to a tune, for example line 2 or 3. You as the player can feel free to alter that chord progression with any of the chords in the other lines, so yes the piano and bass are playing line 2 and you are going to play over line 6. Or even the piano and bass are playing line 5 and you the player are going to play over line 2. Having a progression that uses chord subs doesn't always mean the the basic key for the progression is altered, in the example of line 6 if you play in the key Cmaj you won't hurt anyones ears honest and the jazz police won't be knocking on your door.

Below is a link to some chord charts and two backing tracks, feel free to download them and play around with some of the ideas. The mp3's are in Bb and have just 32bars, one uses chord subs and one uses no subs.
The charts are transpose for Bb and Eb instruments. Also there is a demo of me playing over the chord sub backing track and sticking to the key of C for the note choice. Which should show that despite the out of Key chords the key hasn't changed it's nature.

"1625 Chord Charts & mp3's"

Finally feel free to post any thoughts/findings and your own examples of what you played..
 
Thanks, but I just have no idea what I'm looking at, with this kind of thing.

Is there a good introduction somewhere to how to read chord charts / progressions like this?
 
It's funny you should post this as I've just been doing this exact thing for a cover song I'm working on.

I think I've learnt more about harmony in the last couple of weeks than I probably have in the last two decades because I've started using a piano in my compositions. Thanks to modern technology you can put a piano chord progression onto a timeline on a PC/laptop recording program (DAW) and then explore how each chord can be dramatically changed without adding a single new note (just like inverting a triad). And then you can start adding 7ths or flattening 5ths etc. depending on the relationship between the chord progression and the melody.

Being able to do this and hear the results is an invaluable learning tool, and it's cheap, too. You don't even need a keyboard/piano. I highly recommend trying this to everyone.

If I hadn't done this you're post would have made almost no sense to me at all. ;)
 
Thanks Chris. This is some interesting stuff. I am old enough to remember when rock and roll ballads were usually in 12/8 time and the chord progression was I vi IV V over and over. If I am not mistaken, the progressions you spelled out are sometimes called "Turnarounds". They are commonly found in the last 2 measures of the "A" section of a tune taking it back to the repetition of "A" in the AABA form.

I am just learning about the "tritone substitutions" that are included in some of your variations. For example the Db7 chord is a tritone (3 whole steps) from G7. The Db7 spelled Db F Ab Cb contains the 3rd (Cb or B), the 7th (F), the b9 (Ab) and Db (b5) of the G7b5b9 dominant chord. On top of that the Db7 chord provides a nice descending chromatic movement from Dm7 down to the tonic C. My jazz instructor says that you have the most fun improvising over dominant 7th chords because that is where there is a lot of opportunity to create tension using "color" notes not found in the key of the tonic.
 
Hi Andy, Pete's site "Taming the Saxophone" would be a good start "HERE"

Chris..

Thanks, but after reading that page, I wasn't too sure where to go from there. I've had the free version of the beginners pack for a while, but initially concluded I wouldn't actually learn all those scales, so didn't get the full version.

I see there's a few pages on chords, but some of them aren't included in the free version. I'd pay the fiver, just out of curiosity, to read those two or three pages, but I've run out of Paypal sending limit, til February (they are NOT getting access to my bank account again), so that 's academic.

This page on TTS seems to explain what I need to know, but it's really not sinking in:

Jazz Chord Progressions

I'll try to find some other sources to read first and come back to it.
 
Do you have a piano or keyboard?

There are a few things -
chord structure (which notes, compared to the root)
chord sound (major, minor, harmony/dissonance/tension)
chord sequence
notes played over the chords (melody).

A progression is a sequence of chords, that usually include quite a few repeats - think rock/12 bar blues and how you lock into the chord changes under the melody.

Generally we start from major or 7th chords and add others. Get a feel for this, especially the progressions, based on the root.

Independantly get a feel for the different sounds of the chords (where a keyboard helps).

Bring the sounds together by changing a major chord for a 7th in the progression (e.g. take a progression in major chords, then change one of them to a 7th, hear/feel the effect) - and how it has a different effect, depending on where in the progression you insert it.

Now add the melody.
 
Thanks, Kev.

Yes, I do have a keyboard. I haven't used it in a while, but I expect it still works. Experimenting on it seems like a good idea, rather than trying to wade through lots of scales and bizarre looking chord names without any context.

At the moment, I feel I need an introduction to the introduction.
 
Hi John, the same subs can be used on any 1625 progression, or part of, 25 or 251 not just on turnarounds. When me and Mike did our CD it was all about tension and creating a certain sound without being 'Atonal'. By using alt dom chords I could get the sound Mike was looking for, which almost allowed him to play anything he wished, check out the CD in my sig line fro an idea of what we did.

Andy, check out this thread for some more music theory sites Beginners Music Theory

Chris..
 
Okay. Thanks, Chris and Kev. I'll look into those.

I have a habit of buying books and then not reading much of them, so I'll try the websites first.
 

Similar threads

Back
Top Bottom